BIKES

Triathlon-spe­cific bikes started to be­come part of our sport about 20 years ago. De­signed around the use of aero- (or tri-) bars, triathlon­spe­cific bikes use a steeper seat tube an­gle to al­low you to ride in the aero po­si­tion more com­fort­ably. For draft-le­gal rac­ing, though, you need to ride a reg­u­lar road bike, so we in­cluded one aero­dy­namic road frame in this year’s guide, too.

When it comes to tri bikes, car­bon fi­bre is pretty much the norm – ev­ery sin­gle bike in our buyer’s guide is made of that ma­te­rial and most are built in Asia. While most of the bikes in our guide sit at a fairly high price range, many com­pa­nies will of­fer the same frame with less-ex­pen­sive com­po­nents and wheels that will bring the price down.

The buzz in the tri-bike world over the last few years has been around aero­dy­namic stor­age. Since so many triath­letes are fo­cused on half- and full-dis­tance races where car­ry­ing nutri­tion along is a re­quire­ment, bike man­u­fac­tur­ers have been adding com­part­ments to the frame that will al­low you to store gels, bars and other items with­out com­pro­mis­ing the bike’s aero­dy­nam­ics.

You’ll only per­form well on a bike if it fits you prop­erly, so a good fit is a must when it comes to choos­ing a new bike. Some­times get­ting a bike fit ahead of time can be a huge help and save you lots of money as you’ll make sure to be get­ting an ap­pro­pri­ately sized bike for your body di­men­sions.

CERVÉLO P5X

$15,000, ULTEGRA DI2; $19,000, ETAP OR DURA ACE DI2 We lauded Cervélo’s lat­est superbike as a game changer for the in­dus­try when it was an­nounced in 2016 and this unique bike has sig­nalled a new ap­proach to bike de­sign. Cervélo’s en­gi­neers de­signed the P5X to be as aero­dy­namic as the orig­i­nal P5 (it’s a rocket on down­hills and flats), all while car­ry­ing three round wa­ter bot­tles and all the gels and bars you’ll need for a full-dis­tance race or the long­est of tran­si­tion work­outs. The P5X also ad­dresses one of most com­peti­tors’ big­gest con­cerns – get­ting their bike to the race in one piece. The cock­pit breaks down eas­ily and the en­tire bike packs into a cus­tom Biknd case.